Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - General Bad Design or the Ultimate BS

@dirigible and rk47: Um... I don't think the point is to entirely rework weapon mechanics. I think the weapon mechanics expressed during Character Creation are just fine and should be kept. All I'm saying is that we shouldn't have something later down the road which completely obsolesces those original mechanics. I believe having Brandon grant a talent (rather than a new ability) is the cleanest way to do this.

Not a bad idea, generally thinking but, how exactly would skill change the base physical damage of a weapon? You mean to say that it would increase the damage dealt to an opponent?
Not actually change the physical stats of the weapon, right?

Im just checking.

How about if weapon skill works to counter and reduce enemy defenses, avoidance, resistances and so on?

With any elemental magic adding to that aspect versus specific element - fire sword does more damage to frozen or ice based enemies, ice sword does more damage to burning, fire based enemies - etc, etc. - and damage stats of the weapon on top?

- This would work great to naturally and sensibly reduce the differences between you and few levels higher enemies -




I play with a dagger wielding man at arms and a scoundrel sword-and-board right now. All rolled into one awesome Roderick.

I quite like how Strength and Dexterity work, each reinforcing a specific type of a build.
I like that my fighter doesnt need dexterity and that my rogue doesnt need strength - unless i want it for specific reasons. Which makes things a bit more difficult, but gives me diversity in options in return.
Which makes it balanced. Classless.

Its a somewhat original take on the issue and i would like it to remain different then D&D.




Very nice.

Ill probably steal this idea.

Except it doesn't solve the problem.

Now, if you'll read my post a bit above, you might be enlightened to an idea that actually preserves, if not improves the complexity of the weapons system, whilst solving the actual issue addressed.

EDIT: Oh, at least Hiver cared to actually read the posts in-between :p

If you want me to clarify, then I'll just point to how a weapon's damage is already split up in-game.

Take a weapon with both physical and a bit of fire elemental damage:

If you mouse over it, it'll show you "DAMAGE: X and FIRE: Y"
X is the physical (slashing, blunt or piercing) damage the weapon does and Y is the elemental (in this case fire) damage that it does.

They could've just had Tenebrium skill increase crit by 5% per point on Tenebrium weapons so both regular weapon skills and Tenebrium would apply.

By which you mean: it isn't doing things exactly the way you want.

You mentioned an earlier post in this thread, but that post doesn't make any attempt to describe a problem; it only proposes a solution.

Here's how I'd define the problem: There is an ability early in the game which is made laughably obsolete by an ability later in the game, which makes investment in the former ability a particularly vicious noob trap.

Notice that my description of the problem has nothing to do with the separation of various types of damage. Nor does it indicate whether or not the latter ability should exist (which, by the way, it shouldn't).

Thats what i thought, but i just wanted to make sure.

I would be against that, as i said above, because my skill with the weapon should not alter its physical properties.

Of course, the damage dealt to the opponent is a result of a calculation between weapon stats, your skill and enemy defenses and stats - BUT... there is a way to handle that in a more elegant way.

As i suggested, skill with a weapon would affect how well you go through enemies defenses, whatever they might be. This would result in the increased damage, in the end - if you succeed - but it should not be presented as a change in physical properties of a weapon.

Additionally, it would allow players to counter the differences in levels that are so visible right now, in better ways then its currently possible.

Im not sure if im right, but currently it looks as if difference in levels is more important then actual stats and skill, which bothers me a lot. It may be that my Chance to Hit the enemy three levels above me falls to 10% or so, not because the level difference but because of differences in stats and skills between us - but it sure doesnt look like it.



- also, Ein, i have to say that yours and ScrotieMcB ideas are two different things that could well work with one another, but are not directly related.

as in, his idea doesnt make yours any worse and vice-versa.

Its just that he and dirigible suggested a specific change to Tenebrium issue, while yours is encompassing all weapon skills in a general way.

Well at the very least that would make Ein's suggestion off-topic for this thread. This isn't about revamping the weapon skills in general; this is about the Tenebrium issue.

On reflection, and in the light of the new info about the way Tenebrium skill works, I think you're right, handling the Tenebrium storyline element through a talent would be better.

I dislike that having 0 skill in (example) two-handed weapons and 2 points in Tenebrium handling should makes someone a better two-handed tenebrium swordsman than someone with a maxed two-handed weapon skill and 1 point in Tenebrium handling.

Respec is so poorly implemented I don't see it as an option. People should not have to risk permanently losing skills/spells just to respec for Tenebrium handling.

As ability points in Tenebrium represent your ability to handle the material safely, I had suggested that the Tenebrium requirement on the weapon subtract from the normal weapon skill (representing the difficulty in handling a Tenebrium weapon safely), and each point in the Tenbrium skill offsets that penalty.

i.e. a tenebrium requirement of 3 on a two-handed sword applies a -3 to the user's two-handed weapon skill, but can be lowered to a penalty of -1 to the two-handed weapon skill if the user had a tenebrium skill of 2.

You are not alone as you can tell. There are several other threads complaining about this as well. In one of the threads there was even talk about building a community mod to fix this. It is one of the worst weapon mechanics I've seen in a RPG.

Is there a way to implement polls in the forum? Maybe that would be the easiest way to represent player feelings about the whole situation to the devs?

e.g.
Preferred situation:

Everything is fine as it is

Remove Tenebrium as a skill, only weapon skills taken at start modify weapon damage, Tenebrium storyline effects now give talents that grant immunity to rot/damage bonus using tenebrium weapons

New suggestion? 'Soft' respec when tenebrium is unlocked on a character, the situation is explained, points invested into 'weapon' branch skills are refunded to the player and can be reassigned

New suggestion: tenebrium is incompatible with elemental damage, so elemental damage weapons cannot have tenebrium added to them. Tenebrium weapons are thus not 'better' than normal ones (aside from resistance factors).

Or New Suggestion: Tenebrium is somewhat incompatible with elemental damage, and the total damage bonus remains the same when tenebrium is added to a weapon, and is just split between the types of elemental damage the weapon has (e.g. 10-20 water becomes 5-10 water 5-10 tenebrium). Tenebrium weapons are thus not 'better' than normal ones (aside from resistance factors).

Tenebrium explained at character creation, or selectable at character creation (I don't agree with this either, but it has been mentioned so...)



And of course anything I've missed/anything others would like to add.

Respec would not be nearly as bad if every skillbook was sold by merchants.

"respec" should not exists in this game and its one of the mass market features forced in for the likes of you.

You should be lucky its even in the game at all.





Technically true but you could see that it would touch into how Tenebrium weapons are handled too.

Lets not be petty and just accept that a good suggestion or idea is good regardless.

Especially seeing how dirigible and your ideas would effectively solve the "tenebrium problem" or some specific aspects of it.

Jesus, man, calm down.

:throws meteor storm on everyone:

Hiver made it clear he was very much against respecs back during the beta and held very little regard for people in favor of the feature. Unfortunately for him, respecs were advertised by the developers as early as the kickstarter campaign. So, I don't really see that as being "forced in".

He should be happy, while they are implemented they come at a cost that makes them completely unappealing.

Thanks for the heal, bro.

Seriously, go make a Man-at-Arms Exploder if you haven't tried it already.

Nailed it, i think Tenebrium at least should be treated as a weapon enhancement/enchant including it's current penalties if you are not efficient (skilled) with it; and with the current implementation that overlaps a skill that some people has invested a lot of points into it, it just feels clumsy and a bad implementation of a game changing mechanic.

Now that is the most elegant way of doing it. Tenebrium weapons require tenebrium skill, and the skill reduces a damage penalty instead of boosting damage directly.

But I have no idea if the engine can handle this right now. And a rebalance of all tenebrium weapons would be needed and they start with a -40% damage penalty at skill level 1 . Normal weapon skills apply in that case fully to tenebrium weapons.

Though, to be completely honest, instead of rebalancing the whole game, simply make the tenebrium skill a talent sounds like a much easier solution and it removes this urge of powergamers to ignore weapon skills completely until they hit tenebrium too. Having one skill cover all weapons is naturally tempting.

The biggest problem IMO is that Tenebrium weapons basic damage is higher than equal other level weapons.
Then it also got Tenebrium damage which most enemies cannot resist.

Of course, slightly balanced by not having bonusses (I have yet to find a proper enchanted Tenebrium weapon). Overall, weapon skills are useless (IMO) I noticed in the beta so put no points in them at all, so it's not really an issue for me 0_o

I think the best solution would be to have elemental bonusses boosted by skills. So the +Tenebrium damage by Tenebrium, and the regular damage by the regular skill. Then other boosts like Earth, Fire, Air etc. are also boosted by their suspective tree. I don't think it would be that overpowered, and would only give a minor boost to range/melee + wizard specifications. And might help a bit with Staff of Malgus for mages.
Overall, nothing I would see would be wrong by such a change, but I'm open to discussions if you see a point.

@ Hiver; Indeed, higher leveled enemies might get major to-hit penalties, but those are very easily overcome. Frozen, Blinded, Knock-down, Petrified... and many more make all hits automatic hits.